Blue monday on 1st Jan

Looking at the rapidly changing scenery from the window, listening to   Ghulaam Ali ghazals, having a bag full of banana wafers ,all by myself,I mused at the deliciousness of them. lost completely in enjoying each and every wafer and occasionally licking my fingers so as not to waste any of it.

in this divine moment of rapture I heard voice of my friend and it appeared to come from far off,when actually he was sitting just beside me ,driving.

"what are  u thinking?"

"What?" 

“What what?”

“C'mon u know .what what”

“Oh!”. 

I completely fell down   from the Pinnacle of my ecstasy. I wasn't prepared for an honest answer; I was hardly  thinking anything for the past few minutes except for gorging myself . In fact this took me by surprise and therefore was almost on the verge of adding one more "what "to the string of "what's"  when it struck me that I was expected to be thinking something , little more profound ,than lost in eating.He paused for a few seconds and came again with a different question.

"So what do u think ?"

This time I was more prepared.”About what.sighting of tiger?”.

“Hmm.”

“Well I think with me alongside, you have a very meagre chance.”

“Why.what make u think so.two Kings can't stay in a jungle together?”

“Oh.no no no.not that.” feeling a little proud though, for this patronizing.

“I mean I really have something against me.or rather tigers generally found me not worthwhile.”

“Just because you don't wash yourself that frequently.just because you're stinky.”he said teasingly

Now this is a  kind of accusation which leaves you at wits ends. You can't say yes ,you can't say no as it would be accepting that I am stinky but that's not  a reason.still I said

 "tigers never wash themselves.”it was a pretty lame way of escaping the situation,tried and tested.

In last afternoon of the year ,we were heading towards Sariska palace in Sariska, Rajasthan known for its  tiger sanctuary, for our new year celebrations. A close friend of mine was sitting on steering wheel ,equally hopeful to get lucky to see tiger  this time.This must be my 5th or 6th attempt to see a free tiger in the jungle,and every single time I have been utterly unsuccessful. Chasing pug marks,lurking behind trees near ponds,sitting hushed up for hours in the discomfort of jeep,and straining our ears for any remote animal calls,,seeing tiger poo, listening to bird shrieking, and enduring irksome ranger’s tales  without strangling him,even offering some money as an incentive to the park ranger,I had it all done duly. But as luck would have it,I couldn't shrugg of my virginity in this matter. So much so that now I have started to feel pretty safe and confident in jumping off the Jeep and walking free,assuming myself tiger proof.

After checking in ,We had our lunch at the restaurant and went off to our room for some snug siesta..

We woke up around 7 pm,and after a brief unpacking , mostly of our vodka,and assorted  items, settled in balcony lounge chairs for a relaxing evening.Just to give a brief description of my friend,he is a sales broker in a firm dealing with real estate. Evening parties are very common.and drinking a regular feature. Besides with the kind of recession in the property market for the last couple of years ,he drank regularly more to unwind from target related stress than to socialize. As a result he became close enough to be deemed as a boozehound and most of the aligned vices. He was finding it hard to overcome this and therefore perhaps took this as an opportunity today to announce,

“this is my last drinking session and I will not touch another drop for one year and may be longer.”I was quite surprised by the suddenness of it. 

“'of course.you don't need to touch it to drink it.” I blurted cheekily.

“no I am damn serious this time”

“Like you were last year,and last to that and so on”

“no this time I mean it”

I suppressed my urge to throw a pithy comment ,rather said encouragingly

“oh.that's great.Really heartning.you needed this badly”.though I wanted to incite him a little more so as to make him feel more resolute for himself.But I knew there is a thin line between inciting him and his getting discouraged.

“'Yeah.I have been thinking to do so for a long time and today, sitting here,on New Year's Eve,with my closest friend.”

“I think today I will spare nothing to enjoy for one last time,before I say goodbye to drinking,for long for sure.”Though I was bewildered by the logic yet it was aimed for a very noble cause and I reaffirmed his sentiments. 

And what an evening it turned out to be.Cool December  breeze,and the serenity of our balcony hanging over backyard of palace,which is now being used as a resort..it was quite serene and peaceful,except for occasional  distant howl and closer incessant chirping.we both drank to our full caliber, neither counting nor bothering for our getting sozzled.Here we were two happy people in the world,sitting in our hotel balcony,raising toast after toast, in celebration of our own, deliberately oblivious of a party going downstairs in the lawn,getting ourselves three quarter's drunk

when it came down to the last ounce in the bottle I gladly poured in his glass as an offering ,hoping wishfully this to be his last peg till a long time.

We decided to skip dinner and retire for sleep,We both bade us good night. sleep didn't take long thought to come as we just passed out even before our heads touched pillow and soon the room was lull enough except resounding with heavy snores.I dreamt of myself surrounded by 4 or 5 tigers and was breathing heavily from fear and panic.I was looking all around for my friend ,hoping him to help me out of this. From a distance I heard him calling my name,first slowly then loudly . I was looking all around to locate him, but couldn't see him.then he swore very loud and crisp and I came alive startled and drenched in sweat on a December night. I looked around and there were no tigers for sure and took me a while to come back to reality. But still my name calling continued and I figured it came from closer quarters.

Rewind a few hours.

At around 2 o'clock my dear drunk friend felt some uneasiness and went to the washroom to throw up,which he did,and sat on the edge of the bath tub.again he felt like puking got up and relieved himself and again sat. This happened for few times before he was relieved of his tumultuous stomach and uneasiness. During a lucid phase he probably passed out on the floor. It was a December 31 night,in Rajasthan where temperatures drop to Sub zero,and was a four star property with extensive use of marble on flooring. Wearing only boxers and vest , he lay on his back for some time.Got up briefly after a while, but was either too comfortable on floor or too woozy to get up, and preferred to lie wherever the heck he was. In the morning,opened his eyes to find plastic curtains overhanging his face,when he expected to be lying on the bed with quilt over him.he was feeling cold, dismayed, disappointed,and a little amused, still trying to restitch his memories of past night.He tried to rise,and failed pathetically. All in all he was a heap of stiff back and hungover head. He called out for me few times before swearing in loudly.this was when my nightmare was broken and I came around.

I got up immediately and went to the washroom,feeling quite groggy myself,

and found him in deep agonizing pain on the floor of the bathroom. He was lying on the floor with his legs spread wide and hands bolstering the back.he was looking kind of funny though in deep pain.I thought he might have slipped and hurt himself,how badly I didn't knew.

“What's up”

“Aah”

“What happened.say something”

“Aah,my back”

“Is it broken .did u fell?slipped?”.he just swore.

All his aahs and oohs were sounding very comical and I couldn't help myself from giggling once.

He scowled disdainfully at me. “give your hand.”

With my help,and it was not a modest one,we managed to get him upright and"together" we lifted  and fitted him to the bed. He seemed too heavy for his built. Perhaps from all the rocks of last night's ‘on the rocks.’ He sat on the edge of the bed while I tidied up his bed and made space for him to fall back. Which he did as soon as possible,and emitted a loud cry. Initially I was under the impression that he might have slipped and fallen on the floor ,taking enough injury .but after lying on bed and taking two deep breaths, of course with pain,he spoke in cautious meekness. He spoke for good five minutes while I listened in amusing awe (has already narrated it before). From a broken, incomprehensible account from my buddy of what happened exactly,I gathered it to be a  rather very active night for him.Trying to find out the reason for his stiff back,in utter bewilderment ,we settled for his lying on the cold marble floor for good four hours for his bowlike back .That was one of the moments when I had a mix of emotions. Sympathy, Solicitude (being a doctor) and resentment (as we had planned for our jungle safari after breakfast.

Next couple of hours I forgot my own foggy head,i forgot my morning cup of tea,and even forgot tigers.I was just focussing on doing the best I can do for him,here,with limited medical supplies.I called room service for a hot water bottle.I combed through my medical kit where I found a muscle relaxant cream and flexon.I was a man with a mission and after trying all the resources I had in my hand for good one hour, I found him mildly relieved. So much so that he was able to turn in bed, though with a pain. We ordered for breakfast in the room. 

“Hows your back.”

“Hmmm.”

“What do you mean hmm.”

“U find it amusing.”

“What else is there in this. Shall we have a formal grief session.lets laugh it out.” 

“I can't even laugh. It hurts.”

“What will u tell back home to your wife as to what happened to your back.”

“I will tell her i fell while climbing a rock.he looked deep at me as to register this me as well.”

“And how did u fell,will u tell.”

“I was drunk.”

We both laughed. I guffawed and he chortled due to his pain.but we both laughed our hearts out.

“Will u be able to come for safari.”

“I don't think so”. 

“C’mon .you seem pretty ok to me now.”

“U have no idea what I am going through.”

“Still?”

Breakfast came .Coffee made us a little less bleary, and we were able to think more clearly. He  figured he can still make for the safari after one more dose of flexon and rubbing voveran once more. I helped him pick his clothes for changing and even tied his shoes. I really felt appreciative of his collegiality and unflinching stoicism for agreeing upon the safari.

As we were already too late for the first shift of safari ,we had another  two hours before the second shift.Time which we gladly agreed to wait upon so as to give him more time to recuperate. Around noon we were escorted In a jeep to the park entrance where after buying tickets we were let in and  on a Bolero jeep with two other fellow tourists.we were given indemnity forms to fill up ,which we gladly signed. I bolstered up a pillow on a seat for my friend.The guide was a 'pahadi' who spoke slowly and in broken English with limited vocabulary.He were to take us to area 15 of the park, as the previous jeep reported a sighting there just a couple of hours back.It made me wonder why did i missed all these years if it was so predictive.  Barely a few metres inside ,we started feeling the eeriness of the jungle. 

I could count each an every jerk and bump  we had while riding by the constant cringe and squinces of my friend.It was going  to be a tough ride for him. After taking us on different tracks , making us see a few pugmarks, and hushing us up a few times , he brought us to an open area the size of a football field and killed the engine .We all sat in utter silence,quite gagged up, in anticipation of something happening.But it turned out that it was a false call of the monkeys.  

By this time I was so desperate as if the ultimate aim of my life is to see a tiger in the woods, and barring which I would trivialize all my other earthly possessions and virtues. As if my life hangs on it.especially after having spurred by the pugmarks by the guide. As soon as he turned the ignition back, we all heard loud fluttering of birds and squaking of monkeys,very clear and from right side of our jeep.Holding our breath and straining our eyes and ears we looked all around.Just then our guide pointed towards our far right ,behind a Grove of 4 or 5  big sized trees and an area of dusty coppice.We saw not one but two ferocious tigers perched elegantly and looking on our side .They we so lordly striped and of tawny colour mainly.It was a moment which deserved capturing in big way and we all started clicking.Our guide again turned his Jeep on and without much pressing on gas he started rolling slowly toward the tigers so as to reduce the gap.He stopped when we were around thirty metres from them. What a sight it was.One of them,the closer one was studying us as earnestly as we were to him.

A thought just crossed my mind that if the tiger decides to give us a little more dose of adventure and dashes towards us,making us run for our dear lives, perhaps my friend will find even walking too hard what to speak of running.

“What are you smiling  for.”

“nothing” 

“You and your internal jokes”

I preferred not to share this one.Though i  whispered it to my guide and he giggled too.

We made videos,slomos,and clicked a number of pics including selfies with tigers in backdrop,capturing the moment as far as possible. After I while we were gratified up to our brink and started showing signs of fading excitedness,which our guide quickly sensed and turned on the engine.This time with a little more rev and went ahead a few more metres before turning away and trailing off into the jungle again.

That evening we returned back to our resort very contented.

“How's your pain now?”

“It's better.and besides I am happy.”

“Yeah.what a sight it was.i can never take those visuals out of my mind.”

“What were you whispering the guide there?”

“Mmmmm.nothing.”

“Hmmm.”

So this brought us to a very tenable reason to celebrate.and what could be more appropriate time than to open up a bottle of  10yr old single malt. I ordered for some soda and looked at my friend askingly. He turned away his eyes in disgust.

“Nevermind.i am in celebratory mood enough for both and will help myself.”I chuckled.

 Now he looked at me beseechingly.i ignored.

“Never mind, I will not ask you to join as I respect your resolution and will help u carry on with it.”

Soda came and I made myself a good one.I was feeling sorry for him the way he was  looking at the glass lusciously.

Still, a good friend in need is a friend indeed. So I  picked up the glass and turned my back to him.Yet could feel the edginess in the air. anyways I would not have enjoyed drinking alone.

“I have heard that couple of vodka drinks can ease of the pain.?” he asked warily.

The ball was in my court and it seems there was a whole lot on stake on my answer .

I said “on the rocks or with soda”

 Unhesitatingly He replied “neat”.